The present invention relates to a safety razor; more specifically, it relates to a safety razor developed mainly for women, and suitable for shaving the face, legs and arms.
Conventionally, there have been safety razors wherein a skin contact member is movably mounted on a razor blade unit (see, for example, Laid-open Japanese Utility Model No. S58-51897).
The present invention aims to allow smooth shaving of hair, especially on legs and arms. Further, it aims to lessen the fear felt by women using a razor of a sharp razor blade being in contact with the skin. The aforesaid Japanese Publication S58-51897 describes a safety razor wherein a guard member that is one type of a skin contact member is movable with respect to a razor blade unit. Standard safety razors have a guard part fixed thereto. The safety razor of S58-51897 allows incremental change in guard member movement using an engagement unit, and prior to use, the guard member is fixed in advance at a desired position. Therefore, the guard member does not automatically move during use, and is continuously used at the position once set.
Further, the safety razor described in S58-51897 is for facial hair shaving. Conventional safety razors, including this safety razor, comprise a guard part in front of a cutting edge, and the shaving angle for shaving facial hair is determined by this guard part. The shaving angle is an angle formed by a tangent drawn from the cutting edge to the guard part surface and the razor blade body surface. While the guard part of S58-51897 is movable, it is fixed during use, and performs the same function as a guard part of a conventional razor with a fixed guard part. In recent years, such safety razors have come to comprise, on a guard part, a shaving aid for improving sliding on the skin during use. A guard part of a conventional safety razor is formed to be thin and narrow. The reason for this is that if a guard part is formed thick and wide, when the skin comes in contact with the portion near the front edge of the guard part, with a wide guard part, the portion near the front edge will get in the way, preventing the cutting edge from reaching the skin. Therefore, conventionally, a guard part has not been wide. Because a shaving aid is formed on a narrow guard part, only a small amount of shaving aid is melted and supplied onto the skin. When shaving facial hair, only a portion of the face is shaved, a relatively small amount of supply is sufficient.